The bizarre story of Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame football player, and his dying girlfriend gives new meaning to the term “fantasy football.”

Te’o very nearly rode the heart-rending story of his tragic online romance into a Heisman Trophy (college football’s highest individual honor) and a national championship.

There was hardly a dry eye in the press box as Te’o told of the death from leukemia of his online love and how he would soldier on because that’s what she would have wanted him to do.

It was a great story with but a single flaw — he had no girlfriend, she didn’t die or, in fact, ever exist. She was Te’o's imaginary playmate.

Notre Dame has said that the young man was a victim of a “cruel hoax” and he himself says he was the unsuspecting dupe of an online prankster but the more you learn about the mess the less faith you have in anything the school or player have to say about the matter.

Whatever the genesis of the tale, it’s now quite clear that Notre Dame and Te’o both knew it was phony days before the National Championship game and decided to say nothing about it.

The school’s athletic director said he kept mum out of concern for the player’s safety, the privacy of students and — this one will kill you — the integrity of the national championship game.

Neon Tommy/Flickr

Thank God the integrity of the national championship game remains intact.

“Fake, schmaltzy inspirational tales are the essence of the culture of the [Notre Dame football] program. The…story of Knute Rockne and his dying player, George Gipp, became a famous movie that helped enshrine Notre Dame football…In reality, Rockne was an ethically dubious sports gambler, Gipp a pool hustler, and the main events of the story — Gipp’s dying wish to ‘win one for the Gipper,’ Rockne’s inspirational halftime speech — never happened.

“Likewise, Rudy is the inspirational story of a walk-on who overcame the odds to play football at Notre Dame, but the story is also filled with falsehoods. Rudy, by the way, turned out to be a stock scammer.”

In other words, Notre Dame football, through the years, has majored in imaginary playmates.

Which should not be a big problem — it’s football, right? — except for the fact that one of our major political parties has become infected with the Notre Dame virus.

Schooled by its spiritual leader, Ronald Reagan (who played Gipp in his most famous movie role), the party just makes things up as it goes along and pretends they’re true.

Jeff Dahl/Flickr

The Republicans’ chief imaginary playmate is a Barack Obama that none of us has ever seen. Their Obama is a hard-core ideologue, a borderline socialist who, on international affairs, favors weakness as a strategy. This is a vague figure of murky background, perhaps even an enemy alien, who stole the 2012 election from its rightful owner, Mitt Romney.

Which is a sharp contrast to the real Obama — a mildly liberal centrist who would love to find a Republican Party he could split the difference with. And as for weakness in foreign affairs, there are a lot of dead villains who would argue otherwise if they weren’t…you know…dead.

Obama, it’s said, does not reach out to Republicans. He doesn’t have them over for drinks and dinner like Lyndon Johnson used to. That’s the problem.

Which ignores the fact that Republicans, both ideologically crazed and sane, live in fear that someone will take a picture of them standing next to Obama while looking friendly. They know it will be used against them in the next Republican primary.

He could offer to come to their homes and tuck them in at night and they still wouldn’t cooperate.

Any real reform of our political system must await the destruction of the Republican Party at the ballot box. Perhaps that would lead to the rebirth of a reality-based party.

stop just stop this is the first and last article of yours i will ever read. immediately after the story became public, you decided teo had fabricated this hoax ... and ever since you have been skewing the facts to fit your perception of the story..

Hey mark, take your bushman semi-automatic and do us all a favor. I am sick of your argument. Let's here your gov't conspiracy theory that urges u to defend yourself. I'd rather u go build a doomsday bunker and go away!

Angel1945

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January 25, 2013

Thanks for a great article and 'putting it out there'. With so many of these Repubs here in Texas who have this imaginary President, it's nice to see a article with the truth in it. The funny thing about all of this is that they don't realize how stupid they sound to the rest of us who are living in reality.

Your lack of insight, about college football and politics, is microscopic at best.

But since, seemingly, your only motivation is to focus on the negatives of the most storied and influential program in the annals of college football (and athletics) you show yourself as a pathetic and quintessential expression of artless ineptitude.

Hailing from Ann Arbor, we must assume your allegiance to that bastion of football lore, the mighty Wolverines, whose major claim to fame is having the BIG HOUSE.

Do you think that might explains your attempt to tear down and vilify Notre Dame.